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rude-harmonixer · 2 years

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I was originally going to write on Twitter but character limits are too much of a bother so here I am. This will probably be very messy but I'm dealing with media that probably 10 people are familiar with, so... Whatever!

I've recently found this site: https://nervetower.neocities.org/analysis.html

It has a bunch of translations and essays on the game Baroque, originally released on the Sega Saturn.

This specific bit of info has made me OBSESSED with thinking about the game.

Sure the game was literally written in burst of inspiration by drawing tarot cards because the writers had a deadline and writer's block at the same time, and the protagonist being canonically trans was only in a draft for the prequel material, but the game is surprisingly consistent with its themes and the symbolism can still be read through a trans lens.

And because it's not confirmed and ambiguous, the protagonist can be read through multiple gender povs.

But like, why is this such a big deal? Well, Baroque and its prequel material just so happens to have one of the most incredible anti-bigotry narratives I've ever seen in a game. Specifically anti-ableism and anti-eugenics, among probably some questioning of organized religion and how corporations use it to further alienate the public into a cycle of oppression towards marginalized people. etc.

The protagonist is mass produced and manipulated by the Archangel to "purify" whatever he deems should be "purified", using guilt (the Christians/Catholics favorite thing) to do so as the protagonist is made to not remember anything besides their immense guilt over something.

For the game to progress the protag must regain their memories and find out they're a copy of who knows how many other copies, a human made into a product basically, made to feel special because they won't be distorted by their desperate delusions to escape a world destroyed by corporate greed like all the rest and have the power to "purify" things, when in reality they're just emotionally and genetically manipulated into being that.

A perfect pawn.

Now where is the trans symbolism? Well, aside from how little bodily autonomy the protagonist has, here's where things really get interesting:

In Baroque, God is presented as a woman. Before the Great Heat (aka apocalypse), God's Sense Spheres (her omnipresence, transferring data like the world is a body) assured that no great distortion would come to the reality humanity lived in, God would feel pain and know there was a wound to heal. Then the Archangel, who's really just some scientist, started fucking with the population's mental health on purpose because he wanted to kill God and create his own perfect little world. That's the short summary anyway.

At one point, with a lot of brainwashing using God's screams of pain, he created the Order of Malkuth to help him. But later the members woke up from the brainwashing and organized a desperate attempt to stop the Archangel: they would fuse Koriel number 12 (presented as a boy) with God so she could communicate in data that humans could understand. What they didn't expect however is that Koriel 12 had their own problems, and with Archangel interrupting the fusion, those problems were very amplified.

Koriel 12's guilt over being alive and God's suffering made shit hit the fan for good with the Great Heat.

And that's how the protagonist becomes mute and receives the power of God and anim- I mean, "purification".

The game begins and despite Koriel and God being now two parts of the same being, the Archangel tells Koriel to go to the bottom of the Nerve Tower, where the "Mad God" is basically imprisoned, and "purify" her with a rifle (with ammo made from the embodiment of her pain hormones).

The Archangel is literally making Koriel kill a part of themselves that's already literally buried deep into a mind tower that goes down instead of up but still has the image of a tower instead of a hole. He's basically forcing Koriel to bury the closet with them inside it because the closet isn't enough apparently.

Koriel also can't speak for themselves anymore but their thoughts can be read by the Horned Woman, which she just says out loud without explaining anything and unless you're thinking about it you won't even recognize those are "your" thoughts being spoken by another person.

Jumping ahead, when Koriel gets to the bottom of the tower, you can either do what the Archangel tells you or can just walk towards God and unite with her.

When you do this after some dying and finding out, you'll receive the true ending, in which it is made clear that while it is in a state at which it's harming everyone, the "distortion" is actually the natural way of the world, everyone needs to cope at least a little to survive, the Archangel's eugenicist campaign was the greater problem here, not the people "distorted" into representations of their suffering and coping mechanisms by his actions.

This is primarily focused on ableism and particularly the stigma around mental health.

With a trans reading, it forms a bridge so it can also just mean bigotry in general too.

Why? Well, since the 70s or something, trans people basically have to be diagnosed with a disorder to be granted legal access to transition, that's even truer for Japan, which literally puts it on paper as a disorder. And overall, transphobia and ableism go very hand in hand.

This game is now the closest I've come across to finding a game that's secretly about trans people too like The Matrix.

And this has greatly developed the brain worms 👍

#baroque game #my gaming ramblings #if you're insane enough please try the game #not the ps2 or wii versions tho they're terrible and even if you don't care about most changes you'll most likely care about-#it more than doubling the amount of floors from the psx version which already was bigger than the original and like #please don't do that to yourself the game is already not that fun don't subject yourself to those versions #spoilers i guess but really who even cares #it's not like the surprise really does anything in-game really #you'd just be very confused playing it 100% blind trust me #also there's a whole lot I didn't talk about this is just an incoherent rambling which some might decipher maybe #if you've read all this you're very based and I'm so sorry ahsbsjenzbx

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vilcade · 9 months

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The Greedfall lover in me couldn't help it.

Here's Kurt himself:

It sucks that you can't stack scars in the game, cuz almost all of Kurt's scars are in the options otherwise. Awh, well.

#my gaming ramblings #greedfall #kurt #greedfall kurt #vasco #greedfall vasco #tho i don't think i'll be able to play the game for long #cuz i don't have an ssd #and it shows #still the game is fun and i can't wait to play properly when my rig will be good enough for it #thankfully i didn't actually buy the game yet 😌

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biocrafthero · 8 months

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ANATOMY (2016)

#rambles #art #my art #horror #horror art #kitty Horrorshow #anatomy #anatomy game #dark art #fan art #gore #unreality #<- just for anyone who needs it since Anatomy is a pretty intense game

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the-phantom-peach · 4 months

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skyward sword… yeah <3

Crimson Loftwing

↻ ◁ || ▷ ↺

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asmolbirb · 1 year

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hey sorry we put your boyfriend on a show where the game changes every time. yeah he has no idea what game he’s about to play. but he’ll be fine once he realizes the only way to win is by learning, the only way to learn is by playing, and the only way to begin is by beginning. yeah actually we’ll be beginning without further ado but you can pick him up after. sorry again.

#dropout #game changer #boyfriend meme #has this been done yet?#neko rambles #my legacy #1k #2k #5k #10k #25k

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bubblingsteam · 1 month

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#disco elysium #disco elysium fanart #kim kitsuragi #harrier du bois #harry du bois #this is probably one of my fav conversations in the game...#sad that not many people get to see it(?) cause you need like 7 in empathy?#comics #comic art #trans #cw blood #blood #cw smoking #my first time making a comic i hope it looks okay lmao #ough i have so many thoughts about kim and his complicated relationship with his name #im interpreting the dialogues in a very transgender way but its definitely about his racial identity too #cause its a *seolite* name #another factor of him not being seen as a revacholian #and its one of the only things he has left of his parents too #i wonder if the name kim is seen as more masculine or feminine in seol and in other isolas?#im definitely *not* projecting haha #i read once in a fic that kim *attempted* to translate his parents' letters when he was young #10/10 fic made me cry #thats why i decided to add the seolite dictionary - i dont think kim would have *tried* to learn seolite otherwise #he definitely has some kind of internalized racism he needs to get over #sorry for rambling #my art

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turtlespancake · 9 months

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i love seeing out of context posts about long-running stories with deep lore because it's always shit like "MAJOR SPOILER WARNING!! i can't believe that the metallic athenaeum's envoy actually used never-ending dance of the 57th universe on rionne as if she's not LITERALLY the incarnate of august?!?!" it's like buddy boy thank you for the spoiler tag but all of those words are incomprehensible without at least 5 years of foreshadowed knowledge, 7 different fan theories, and 21 wiki entries

#rambling #this post was about 3 different fandoms #number 1 was my friend trying to explain to me what was happening to dazai bungo stray dogs (i have not seen bungo stray dogs)#number 2 was ominscient reader viewpoint. anything tagged MAJOR SPOILERS for orv is either completely incomprehensible or like.#an image of someone interacting with a book. and somehow BOTH manage to be emotionally devastating in context #number 3 was me trying to explain genshin lore to a friend and realizing i sounded deranged saying shit like #“after the primoridal one fought the second who came celestia used nails to supposedly heal the land but enkanomiya still sank rip”#how did the wot fandom find this i am a gaming blog mostly..

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chainsawsangel · 2 months

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"I finally understand the harvey hype"

oh, I'm sorry! you mean stardew valley harvey? the "he's such a boring romance" harvey? the harvey whose romance took me LITERAL hours to get so I could marry the lovable guy, that harvey?

he's cool now? HE'S BEEN COOL.

#he's suddenly trending ig and it's my reminder to you all that he's always been one of the BEST sdv romances to me #idk what y'all are on #rhiannon rambles #stardew valley #sdv #sdv game #stardew valley harvey #sdv harvey #harvey stardew valley #harvey sdv #harvey x farmer #harvey

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whenthewallfell · 1 year

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Suzanne Collins straight up invented a whole marriage ceremony based around toasting bread on an open fire for your one true love just to then have THE BAKER'S SON LITERALLY BURN BREAD FOR THE GIRL ON FIRE

Absolute legend.

LEGEND.

#the hunger games #everlark #katniss everdeen #peeta mellark #THE LITERARY PARALLELS #THE SYMBOLISM #IF ONLY I COULD BE SO GLORIOUSLY INCANDESCENT #they were made for fanfic is2g #sorry not sorry for all the hg posts #this is my hyperfixation and i'm taking you all down with me #rambles

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frm9pm · 2 months

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He’s playing beatmania

#drarry #I had trouble with my mobage the other day and my wife helped me clear it with no issues lol :’p #and then my brainrot makes it Drarry oops #also I wanted to draw Harry with a game boy color #I’m going to do it again #he deserves one #I’m rambling blahblah

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rude-harmonixer · 1 year

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I know a lot of folks did not like Manhunt 2's story and kind of just Manhunt 2 in general and that's fair but also most of them don't really seem to be so because the game can get a little,, pretty ableist so idk

I like how it turns out to be this shady mind experiment done by the government. I like how Leo is a piece of shit and his first visual appearance is in a mirror along with Danny, he's an awful stereotype but also not at the same time and it's weird and idk it overall has flaws and is messy but I can't help but love it when it's actually happening.

#idk I'm just having an awesome time with it compared to the first #the first is cool and I find it fascinating on paper but it just doesn't really click for me in the actual moment #my gaming ramblings #manhunt 2 #I also like how lively they manage to make the setting feel in fittingly pretty horrible ways with very little

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vilcade · 2 years

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Might have spent a bit too much time circling and photographing this poor sod during the last mission in Brigmore DLC while imagining Martin in some similar tight scenario. (Might draw the line at forced cannibalism though. Unless...)

#my ramblings #my gaming ramblings #overseers #teague martin #(kinda)#whump #hmm-hmm i love when overseers are shown wounded #and this one also went insane so bonus points

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yourleftpinkytoe-blog · 3 months

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Andrew is the favorite uncle. Not just for Aaron and Nicky’s kids but all the foxes kids are just obsessed with uncle Andrew.

None of the foxes understand why except for Neil. But that only because Neil is there when Andrew gets up at three am to answer a phone call from their sobbing niece, who admits for the first time out loud that maybe she isn’t a boy and “is that okay uncle Andrew”. Or when Kevin’s kid shows up at there house after getting in an argument with her dad and Andrew lets her rage and rant until it doesn’t seem like the end of the world anymore, then walks her home (hc: they live pretty close for a while cause their on the same team). Or when nobody can get Aaron’s twins to stop crying but as soon as Andrew is given a turn at trying to calm the babies they stop immediately.

The kids all love Andrew he’s the first one they go to with their issues, he’s the first one they run too when all the foxes are together, he’s the first one that they come out too if they’re queer(Nicky is so mad when his kid comes out to Andrew before him)

He’s just a really good uncle.

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lazylittledragon · 4 months

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isn't it weird how if you get up at 7 or 8, do your work all day, then have free time and go to bed at 11 that's absolutely fine

but if i said i get up at 10, do fun stuff in the morning then work in the evening and go to bed late, i could be called lazy, nevermind that i'm getting just as much or MORE work done as i would in a traditional work day

#ramble #idk if this is a me problem or not #i've tried to do the early rise early bed thing again and again and it just does not work for me doing freelance right now #maybe it's bc i used to work at a bar so i'm more comfortable being active in the evening #i love working at night because there's less going on to distract me #what used to happen is i would get up early then fight executive dysfunction all day saying i couldn't do fun stuff until i did my work #then my will to work would hit at 10pm and i'd be up till 2am anyway #right now my routine is waking up later and playing a game or knitting for an hour or so and then working in the afternoon and evening #something something capitalism and 9-5 and adhd don't go together #this sounds like i'm just making excuses but it works and i'm actually getting shit done and sleeping enough so i don't see the problem #i just figured i'm probably going to sit and do nothing for a few hours in the morning anyway so i might as well give myself permission to

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crystallizsch · 4 months

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i really like how canonically yuu is genuinely supportive of grim wanting to be a great mage. if i recall correctly, even character voice lines point this out. and it seems like yuu dotes on grim a lot and defends him too??? yuu even encourages grim's ambitions whenever he declares wanting to be a great mage. and also when he does that boss-henchhuman dynamic. i mean yeah you can interpret it as yuu saying that being condescending and sarcastic as if they're talking to a child saying "when i grow up i want to be famous!" but like. i really think they're genuine when mc loves grim in their own way.

even if grim is usually a menace, he's become like family to yuu.

and i'm pretty sure grim feels the same way.

think about it this way. despite all the mess, all the unpredictability, the danger, and all the drama being in nrc. what's always the constant? yuu goes home at the end of the day to the ramshackle dorm (basically their home at this point considering they slowly but surely fix it up over time) and with who? “the great mage” grim. as the sole outcasts in that academy, they both sleep soundly knowing they will always have each other at the end of the day.

#2nd anniversary event got me feeling things #and honestly just thinking about that grim overblot theory #if that's true i believe grim's breaking point would be yuu finally beginning to leave through the dark mirror #and then overblotting leaving the dark mirror room in ruins like we see in the beginning of the game #he does not want them to leave #they WILL stay there #the great grim refuses to be alone in that “ramshackle” dorm #[—#twisted wonderland #twst #twst grim #twst yuu #twst ramshackle #★ twst rambles #—]#god at first grim was REALLY made to be unlikeable #then overtime (personally) grim had just really grown on you #i will defend grim with my life now >:(

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soft-cryptids · 1 year

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“Nice.”

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